


Strangers and Psychiatrists

by M1ssUnd3rst4nd1ng



Series: Keeping Up With the Smiths AU [1]
Category: Doctor Who, Doctor Who & Related Fandoms, Doctor Who (1963), Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Children, Alternate Universe - Human, And they know it, F/M, Gen, No psychiatrists were harmed in the making of this one-shot, Or eight-year-olds, Or garden sheds, Or that one cat that might have been hit with Aunt Sharon's dinnerware, The Smiths are the neighborhood weirdos, they don't care
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-23
Updated: 2017-06-23
Packaged: 2018-11-18 02:00:17
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,359
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11281407
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/M1ssUnd3rst4nd1ng/pseuds/M1ssUnd3rst4nd1ng
Summary: One dark night, a very strange boy crashes into Aunt Sharon's back garden. And asks for an apple. He said his name was Eleven and he was a time traveler. Why does only one person believe Amelia?





	Strangers and Psychiatrists

**Author's Note:**

> Disclaimer: I do not own Doctor Who, its characters, events, or settings, or about half the dialogue in this story; all rights belong to their respective creators.
> 
> This story is loosely based on the episode "The Eleventh Hour."

The adventure began with a crash.

Eight-year-old Amelia Pond was just preparing for bed when an enormous crashing, banging, crunching noise from the backyard sent her flying to the window instead. A bit of light leaked over the high wooden fence that completely surrounded the garden and just barely lit up what looked like the wreckage of Aunt Sharon’s little garden shed; she thought she saw something moving.

Never one for caution or patience, she snatched up her flashlight and bolted down the stairs and across the back garden for a closer look at the mess that was indeed the shed—or what was left of it. The roof faced the house, sticking straight up in the air and braced by the remains of a wall on either side, as if the entire thing had been tipped onto its front by the same thing that had shattered the rear wall. And whatever it was that had done the damage was apparently still inside; she could hear grunts and the clatter of loose wood and what sounded like a voice muttering.

She stepped back in surprise as loose boards were suddenly flung up and out of the shed.

Then a hand grabbed the top edge of the roof from the inside.

Then another.

Then a face popped over the top and stared right at her.

Then, “Can I have an apple?”

She blinked.

“All I can think about. Apples. I love apples. Maybe I’m having a craving! Do people other than pregnant women get cravings? Or maybe it’s not really a craving, it’s just ‘cause I can smell apples and it’s making me hungry.” He pulled himself up as he talked until he was straddling the edge of the roof, then looked down at the destroyed shed. “Whoa!” he exclaimed, “Look at that!”

He finally paused for long enough for her to get a word in and she asked, “Are you okay?”

He grunted. “Time machine blew up. Had a bit of a fall,” he said, as if it were completely normal to fall out of the sky and crush people’s garden sheds. And claim to be a time traveler.

He turned to face her completely then, still perched on the edge of the overturned shed roof, with his long legs dangling down the incline. He was her age, but maybe a bit taller, with shaggy brown hair falling in his eyes and ragged shirt and trousers hanging from his gangly body. He made a large, vague gesture at the mess he sat atop with one hand and nearly overbalanced himself. “This cushioned my fall; I should be perfectly fine.” Then, still waving his hands about, he _did_ overbalance and tumbled down the slope of the shed roof to fall right at her feet.

“Are you alright?” she asked again.

“No, I’m fine,” he said, with a wave of his hand and a bright grin. “I’m alright. Happens all the time. Just a bit dizzy, is all. Might have hit my head.” He felt around his head as if checking for lumps.

“Who are you?” Amelia finally asked.

“Don’t know yet,” he said distractedly, still checking for head injuries with a goofy grin. “I’m only eight; I’m still cooking.”

“You’re a bit weird,” Amelia informed him.

“Yes, I’ve heard.” Finished checking his head, he turned to walk away and walked directly into a tree a few paces away.

“You alright?” she found herself asking yet again.

“Yep!” He grinned. “Told you, still early days. Steering’s a bit off, but Mother says with luck I’ll grow out of it.”

And Amelia found herself laughing along with this strange boy from the sky, pulling him to his feet (he tripped and fell again in the process), and leading him to the house for an apple.

Which he took one bite of and spat back out.

“That’s disgusting. What is that?” he demanded.

She frowned. “An apple.”

“Apples are rubbish,” he decided. “I hate apples.” He tossed the rest of the apple to the side.

“You said you loved them,” she accused.

“No, no, no, I love yogurt,” he corrected. “Yogurt’s my favorite. Give me yogurt.”

She gave him yogurt and he slurped quite a bit into his mouth before again spitting it on the floor (and one of Aunt Sharon’s kitchen chairs, and a bit on Amelia’s nightie; miraculously, he seemed to miss himself entirely).

“I hate yogurt,” he whined. “It’s just stuff with bits in.”

“You said it was your favorite.” Now she was getting angry.

“I think I have a concussion,” he said, wiping the extra yogurt from around his mouth with one arm so emphatically he swayed; she thought for a moment he was going to fall again. “New rules. It’s like eating after cleaning your teeth; everything tastes wrong.”

“What does that mean?” she demanded. “What’s wrong with you?”

“Wrong with me? It’s not my fault. I told you I have a concussion. Why can’t you give me any decent food? You’re Scottish; fry something.”

She huffed and glared, but she fried up some bacon. He took a bite and she thought for a moment he was enjoying it; he even smiled as he chewed. But then he spat it out, pawing at his tongue and shaking his head in disgust.

“Bacon,” he said. “That’s bacon.” He frowned and leaned across the table. “Are you trying to poison me?”

She rolled her eyes. He was either very dramatic or from somewhere very strange. Possibly both. He _had_ fallen out of the sky; maybe he was from a different planet.

Next, she tried beans, which at least made it into the sink this time, rather than the floor, even though he insisted they were “evil.”

Then simple bread and butter, which he actually tossed out the front door into the street, plate and all, with a shout of “And stay out!” She heard a cat screech and hoped he hadn’t hit it. She also heard Aunt Sharon’s plate shatter, but she cared less about that.

She offered him carrots, which he refused (thankfully without chewing them and spitting them out, though he did call her insane, so it was an even trade off, she figured).

Then he’d gone searching himself and emerged with frozen fish fingers and a container of custard. She thought he was joking.

But then he’d filled a large bowl with the custard, warmed the fish fingers, and sat down at the table to happily eat them.

By dipping the fish fingers into the custard.

He was more than a bit weird and she was becoming more and more convinced that he was from a different planet as time went by, but she decided it no longer mattered, shrugged, and joined him at the table with some ice cream for herself.

He smiled and drank some custard from the bowl, then wiped the excess onto his arm again. Even alien boys were gross, Amelia decided. But he was funny.

“What’s your name?” he asked. And she told him. “Oh, that’s a brilliant name!” he exclaimed. “’Amelia Pond.’ Like a name in a fairytale.”

“What’s _your_ name?” she asked in return.

“Eleven.”

“That’s your _name_?” That settled it in her mind; he _had_ to be an alien of some sort. He had too weird of a name not to be.

He grinned and nodded. “Are we in Scotland, Amelia?” Definitely an alien if he didn’t know the difference between _Scotland_ and _England_.

“No. Had to move to England,” she explained. Then, because he wouldn’t understand the significance of that, being from another planet, she added, “It’s _rubbish_.”

“Why’d you have to move?” he asked curiously.

“Aunt Sharon,” she said, with all the anger and blame she could muster. “She’s actually Mum’s aunt, so she’s really old. Mum says she needs someone to help her out, but nobody else wanted to because she’s a horrid old bat, so we got stuck with her.”

She was pleased to note that he looked suitably impressed with her suffering. “I don’t have an aunt,” he offered.

“You’re lucky,” she informed him.

He grinned. “I know.”

And, alien or not, she couldn’t help grinning back. They were going to be friends, she decided.

They chatted for a while as they finished their snacks, but then he said he had to go, he’d already been gone long enough, and she agreed that it was time for her to be getting to bed anyway. He left as strangely as he’d arrived, this alien boy named Eleven, arranging bits of the shed against the back fence to climb to the top then flinging himself up and over to the other side with a shout of “Geronimo!”

Amelia congratulated herself as she finished preparing for bed for handling the entire matter of a small alien invasion by herself in such a mature manner.

She forgot entirely about the mess they’d left behind, though, and so woke the next morning to a very displeased Mum and Dad and an even worse Aunt Sharon. The fry pan from the bacon and the bean pot were still dirty on the stove; a bowl full of custardy water, an ice cream scoop, and the plate from the beans were in the sink, and another plate smashed in the street in front of the house; an empty custard carton, empty fish finger box, partial cup of yogurt, and numerous crumbs littered the countertops; and a partially-eaten apple, bits of chewed apple, and yogurt were all over the floor in the kitchen and even tracked into the front hall. Not to mention that the shed in the back garden was completely destroyed.

Mum was completely in a tizzy because she had worried that the escaped prisoner from the news had found their house and caused all the chaos. Aunt Sharon, of course, thought Amelia had shown her true colors as a juvenile delinquent and “behaved abominably.” Dad mostly kept quiet and tried not to rile up any of the three women in his life any further than they already were, as usual. But when Amelia tried to explain what had actually happened, the story of a possibly (likely) alien boy named Eleven falling out of the sky (possibly from a time machine) and landing on the shed with strange cravings and even stranger manners wasn’t believed.

Aunt Sharon, who had always had a problem with Amelia’s “wild, unseemly behavior,” immediately suggested a child psychiatrist, not for the first time. Her parents had always resisted the suggestion in the past, but as days passed and Amelia kept insisting she had been visited by an alien who was possibly also a time traveler, they relented.

* * *

 

The story began with a crack.

Shortly after Amelia Pond had moved into Aunt Sharon’s house, she had begun “exploring,” which actually meant “avoiding Aunt Sharon and also looking for a nice place to hide whenever she needed it,” but also meant “exploring” a little bit, because she had always been curious. That curiosity is what led her to find the crack in the fence, tucked away in the very back corner of the garden, behind the little shed and covered by some shrubbery, and the need for a hiding place led her to make a place there where she could read and play in privacy.

There was nothing particularly special about the crack itself: it was a jagged line curved upwards on both ends, about as wide as Amelia was tall, traced across the boards of the fence like something was trying to push through from the other side. The boards were bent inward around the crack and broken, but still attached to the fence at both the top and the bottom, so that there wasn’t an actual opening except for a few places where small chunks of wood had fallen loose, but there were still two really nice things about it.

The first, was that, even though it was too high for her to see through—and she’d gotten many a scrape trying—she knew there was someone on the other side because she could sometimes hear voices drifting through it. They were too indistinct to make out words, but they were interesting and somehow magical and she never gave up the idea that someday she might actually hear words.

The other good thing about it was that Aunt Sharon had obviously never been there. The rest of that fence was perfect, every board perfectly straight and snuggly fastened and crisply painted (and boring) because Aunt Sharon firmly believed both the old adage that “good fences make good neighbors” and the old misconception that appearance is everything. But this one spot had crooked, cracked, bent boards and little holes and dirty, shabby, chipped paint. It was obviously the perfect spot to get away from the cranky old witch.

So Amelia cleared away the shrubbery along the base of the fence below the crack and formed a little den with just enough room to play in, a secret place just for her.

After the boy from the sky had fallen on Aunt Sharon’s shed, she hadn’t been able to go there for a while because her parents were too worried about her to let her out of their sight. But when she finally did manage to escape, she found that it had become even more special: the crack in the fence had pushed inward even further, which meant the voices from the other side had become clearer, and she was able to identify one of them as the boy who called himself Eleven.

When she gave this obvious proof of her truthfulness to her therapist, telling him that she heard Eleven’s voice again from the other side of the crack, he took “the other side” to mean a metaphor for death and asked if she was talking to a ghost or an angel. She tried explaining that he was neither, but he ignored her and decided that it must be an angel since he had fallen from the sky. She wasn’t sure if he was mocking her, patronizing her, or just plain crazy, but she told him that Eleven couldn’t be an angel because he didn’t have wings and because an angel would have been able to tell the difference between _Scotland_ and stupid old _England_ ; when he continued to ramble on about seeing angels, she decided it didn’t matter why he was doing it and settled the matter entirely by biting him and screaming some words at him that she’d learned from Old Man MacGregor back home when he was especially angry. Dad got her a new psychiatrist; Mum got her a priest, a Bible, and a phone number for the best medium in town, but agreed to wait to call the medium in until the new psychiatrist confirmed whether Amelia had seen a ghost or not.

The new psychiatrist was a nice, middle-aged lady who had a son Amelia’s age and two kinds of caramels in her office, soft and hard, because she said some days she needed one and some days the other. She said that she didn’t think Eleven was a ghost or an angel and persuaded Mum not to call the medium and to let Amelia stop seeing the priest all the time. Amelia liked her right away.

On her second visit to that doctor, Amelia actually met the doctor’s son, whose name was Rory. He was a good listener like his mum and had a very nice smile that made Amelia feel like she could tell him anything. She liked him right away, too,even though he had an unfortunate nose and was English and a bit boring; but he was smart, so he could get less boring in time—and from being around not-boring people, like Amelia—and then maybe he wouldn’t be so _English_. Unfortunately, nothing could be done about the nose, but Amelia thought she could overlook it, especially when he smiled.

But the absolute best thing in the world about Rory was that he believed her. Amelia didn’t think even Rory’s mum really believed her, even though she never said anything about it and nodded the whole time Amelia talked, but she could tell Rory actually believed her because the questions he asked made it sound like it actually happened and he didn’t use words like “supposedly.” And because Rory was the first person to believe her about the boy from the sky and the voices from the crack in the fence, she liked him even more.

Enough that she let him into her secret place to hear the voices for himself.

It wasn’t hard to get permission for Rory to come over, even from Aunt Sharon, because Aunt Sharon thought that Rory was a well-behaved boy and that as the son of a respected psychiatrist he was bound to be a good influence. Amelia thought it was a good thing that Aunt Sharon didn’t know Amelia was in charge in their friendship.

Eventually, Amelia had to bite Rory’s mum in order to get a new therapist because she just kept _nodding_ and Amelia couldn’t take it anymore, but her parents refused to switch to a new therapist just because she asked. Luckily for her, though, neither Rory nor his mum were the type to hold grudges, so they were able to stay friends and still play regularly the whole summer.

Rory soon stopped being completely boring and she stopped minding that he was English, but he still played whatever game she wanted, and even had some ideas to make the games better, so Amy decided he was her best friend ever. Even with that nose.

And when she was nervous about starting a new school here in England with everybody in town knowing that she was already on her fourth psychiatrist (having bitten three already), he didn’t make fun of her and call her a baby or tell her it would be okay even though he couldn’t know that for sure; instead, he said he always heard his mum tell people to embrace change because sometimes feeling like a brand new person made facing brand new things a little easier, and so when she decided to start going by Amy he was the first person to start using her new name and didn’t even give her a funny look.

* * *

 

The friendship of a lifetime began with a crack and a crash.

Because when the newly-christened Amy Pond walked into her new school with her best friend Rory by her side and saw the boy who had literally fallen into her life months before, wreaked havoc, and jumped back out, she punched him in the face without hesitation. There was a loud crack as she hit his nose and he crashed to the floor with blood already pouring out of it.

By the time she returned to class from the Headmaster’s office, he had already forgiven her (not that she had done anything wrong, mind), and the three of them soon became the best of friends. She learned that Eleven was not his actual name, but a nickname; that he was not actually an alien, but actually the neighbor in the house behind Aunt Sharon’s; that he was building a time machine with his brothers, but that it didn’t work yet; and that the crack in the fence had been caused when one of their experiments had blown up a different time (he couldn’t remember details). He had had a concussion the night he destroyed Aunt Sharon’s kitchen, which was part of the reason he had acted so strangely; the rest of the reason was because he and his entire family were completely crazy.

The last part she had learned when the escaped prisoner who had been all over the news all summer was chased by the police right into their school and Eleven and two of his older brothers pulled crazy stunts to trap him for them without anyone getting hurt.

And so began a wonderful friendship full of adventures, stories, and Eleven crashing into anything and everything. The concussion didn’t account for all of his clumsiness.


End file.
